The younger of the girls, Evie, is a lot like me. We both hang out quite a bit in our heads and enjoy worrying about things completely out of our control. We also enjoy exerting the maximum control over those things we can. For example, last night she was interested in ranking, in order of likelihood and severity, natural disasters. You see, we like to have some sort of a thoughtful approach to our rumination. As you might imagine, this can get a bit taxing at times.
That’s why I will forever cherish a certain, newly-formed memory for the rest of my sentient days. It is already nestled safely in that Jewel Box of Perfect Memories. The metaphorical box is populated with those crystallized moments that exist in perfect, freeze-frame clarity. If my life were a long bunch of film, these moments would make up the highlight reel. My newest gem for the collection is Evie as wedding dancer.
A couple of weeks ago, we celebrated a family wedding, and pretty much all of my mom’s family was there. Now, this family loves a wedding dance. My Grandma and Grandpa Cousin (my mom’s parents) were famous for cutting a rug at any opportunity, and the entire bunch of us are unabashed wedding dancers. My childhood is littered with memories of relatives’ weddings and us as kids cramming the front of the dance floor before we retreated, bleary with sleep, to the tables to watch the grown ups dominate the scene. One of the best include my Great Aunt Helen, my Grandpa’s sister, who was also a recreation square dancer.
Of course, at some point I entered into that bleak, black period of childhood wherein we I was too embarrassed to freely dance. What a waste of good dancing time this was, but there you go. To truly enjoy wedding dancing, you can’t give even the slightest concern to how you look doing it.
In everyday life, Evie has this same burden overwhelming concern about what people think of her. However. This absolutely does not apply to wedding dances, where she truly lets her freak flag fly. She comes by this honestly and was taught by the best…
And she was in rare form a couple of weeks ago. The girl couldn’t get enough, and she simply embodied joy. It was perfect.At one point, right around the climax of the party when everything is at its peak and you know that it’s probably only downhill from here, they started playing a loooong Santana number. Something about the Latin rhythms, the thrumming guitar, spoke to Evie. She flung herself wholly into the music, threw her head back and DANCED. And, like moths to a flame, we were all drawn to her. Without discussing it, we began following her childish moves that translated so easily into dance. Every eight bars she’d switch her move up, the circle of adult acolytes would grin, and we’d pick up the beat. She didn’t miss a step, and neither did we. If nothing else, the girl has a future as a Zumba instructor.
So, if you want your day made, get a load of this gem from the Jewel Box of Perfect Memories:
Cute! Actually both daughters seem to dance pretty well.
I enjoyed both the dancing…and the writing. Thanks.